On Tuesday, I put on a courtroom-sketcher hat. I headed down
to the federal courthouse in Tacoma for the opening statements of State Auditor
Troy Kelley’s trial.

My day as a courtroom sketcher
provided a great opportunity to merge old and new media. I drew on my iPad Air
2 using a Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus and the drawing app ProCreate, which
automatically generated the replay video you can see at the top of this post. I
also brought a regular sketch pad, but I chose to sketch digitally in order to
do live tweets during the trial. The courtroom had wi-fi but I simply relied on
connecting my iPad to my iPhone hotspot to have Internet access.

The defense asked for a mistrial but the judge denied the motion.by Gabriel Campanario

The federal courtroom where I made
these sketches felt very solemn. A space where law rulings are made calls for
that kind of environment. Stone walls, high ceilings and stately wooden
furniture contributed to that feeling of respectability. Technology was
visible, too. Every seat had its own flat screen connected to an even larger
screen located across the jury box. A golden seal with the words United States
District Court, Western District of Washington, appeared on the monitors before
the trial started.

After the trial was adjourned for
the day, I took a few more minutes to flesh out some sketches before emailing
them to the newsroom for the print edition.